Tuesday Morning: July 8th
Phyll rolled over onto her side, smiled a good morning, stretched, and sat up slowly. She had been sleeping fully clothed, but every hair was in place and her khaki outfit looked like it had just been pressed. She was, as always, clear eyed, graceful, immaculate.
I didn't really want to have to deal with Phyll that morning. I had had a rough night and I was on edge. I resented that flawless elegance. I resented it for myself, and I resented it for Martin Welche.
Half an hour later we sat down to a breakfast of coffee and corn flakes – the corn flakes floating uncertainly in a sea of reconstituted powdered skim milk.
Phyll eyed me with something like patient censure when I added a second spoonful of sugar to my corn flakes.
“Quit it, Phyll.”
“I didn't say anything, Naomi.”
“You didn't have to say anything.” I poked up my glasses. “I can feel those vibes emanating across the table. I can hear your mind saying, 'Naomi, why won't you at least make the effort? Do you want to be fat and sloppy?”
She smiled at me, “Well, now that you mention it, Naomi, do you want to be fat and sloppy?”
I added a third spoonful of sugar just to spite her. “With my build I would look fat while suffering through the last stages of anorexia nervosa.”
“Nonsense – you're not fat. You are what the Americans call cuddly. Or at least you would be if you'd ever dropped your guard. But I worry about you when you become so fixated on food. Corn flakes and reconstituted milk are not in themselves appetizing.
I held my peace because I knew that Phyll meant well. In small ways she had been trying to improve me since early in our acquaintance. She knew in her own mind that I would be far happier once I had been improved. She was probably right too.
I couldn't manage to get at the last of the corn flakes with my spoon, and so, with something approaching malice aforethought, I lifted the bowl to my lips and slurped loudly. “I'm sorry, Phyll, but you won't make a lady out of me with a three week crash course. If I didn't learn how to handle a soup spoon in all the years of my childhood, I'm not likely to learn now.”
“Tell me, Naomi, do you have a prejudice against polite behavior? Believe me, the acquisition of table manners is not likely to have an adverse effect either on your mind or on your academic output.”
I put down the bowl and poked my glasses back into place. “I'm just trying to bug you, Phyll. I happen to be in a bitchy mood – I think we both are. I spent a lot of last night listening to the love sick meanderings of Martin the Magnificent, and that was enough to make a bitch out of anyone.”
I shook away the memory and turned back to Phyll. “Look, you and I are two very different people, Phyll – from very different worlds. Of course I'd love to be civilized – who wouldn't want to be civilized like the Honorable Phyllida Allyngham?” I held up my hand to stop her. “And I'm not being entirely sarcastic. I've wanted to be more like you since the first time I saw your family photograph in the New York Times Society section. Did I ever tell you about that? It was a long long time ago, Phyll. I think you were maybe eleven at the time. I was seven.”
“Ancient history.”
“Not so ancient, Phyll. What you and I do for a living – that's ancient history. The New York Times Society Section isn't ancient history – they specialize in wish fulfillment and fantasy. Do you want to know something, Phyll? And this is the truth. To those of us who live our lives in the dark streets of Brooklyn, travel the subways, and wear eyeglasses, you and your family were the stuff dreams are made of.”
“Oh Christ, Naomi, you're laying it on rather thick, aren't you?”
“No, I'm really not, Phyll. I'm just trying to explain why, when I wake up in the morning, and see you there blond and beautiful and perfect I get just a little bit resentful. You should take it as a compliment. God, Phyll, your parents hobnobbed with the Kennedys. They were a part of Camelot.”
“Yes, of course. My father Lord Phillip, the real life ambassador who looked just like Errol Flynn and my mother the tall ethereal Lady Elizabeth Allyngham. You do realize, Naomi, that all that Camelot shit was entirely a creation of the newspaper social columns. It was an illusion.”
“Then it was a damned attractive illusion. And it wasn't all an illusion. It couldn't have been. The money was real enough and your parents were the end-product of a long line of highly bred people – civilization, as you understand it, was in their bones.”
“And like highly bred race horses, the results were not always fortuitous.”
“Depends on how you look at it, Phyll. I'd like to be tall and ethereal.”
She sighed. Even her sigh was gorgeous. “I'm not asking you to be tall and ethereal, Naomi. I just wish you wouldn't slurp that god-awful milk.” “
“I appreciate your efforts, Phyll. I really do. But give it a rest. I'm a klutz and it's too late to change me.”
She studied me for a moment. “I'm not entirely certain what a klutz is, but has it every occurred to you that you intentionally make yourself as unattractive as possible – you use it as a crutch?”
“Come off it, Phyll.”
“Take your eye glasses. Why do you wear them?”
“Because I'm near sighted. I'm nearly blind without my glasses.”
“No you're not. And even if you were, you could wear contact lenses. Do you want to know why you wear those oversized spectacles, Naomi?”
“Sure. Go ahead. Tell me, Phyll. I've been waiting for this moment all my life.”
“Stop gaming me, Naomi. You wear your eye glasses because without them you're just another cute kittenish girl. The kind men will always try to take home and pet. But with those ridiculously oversized spectacles you look like a parody of someone's Oxford tutor. They're a shield for you, Naomi. You hide behind them. I have the bones and you, to use the vernacular, have the boobs. That, dear heart, is genetic. You'll find that it is also a fairly even trade off if, that is, you can ever bring yourself to bury the sainted Sam Greenberg. But of course you have no intention of burying Sam Greenberg.”
“I intend to get married and have children, Phyll. It's a commandment.”
“Yes, and you'll marry a Sam Greenberg clone. Wearing over sized eye glasses and dressing in clothing three sizes too big for you is defensive. The klutz is someone you hide behind.”
“No, I don't. . . . Well, yes, maybe I do. We all have our defense mechanisms. I hide behind my glasses and you hide behind your beauty and your status. No one wants to touch me, and no one dares touch you. I think we've both reached an accommodation with life. I don't like being a klutz, but better the klutz I know than a walking parody of someone else.”
I helped myself to another bowl of corn flakes.
She set her own bowl away from her and sipped her coffee. “Is that meant to be profound, Naomi?” At my nod she continued. “You're a sweet kid, Naomi, and a brilliant scholar, but you are also an incredibly smug, self satisfied, bitch.”
I looked up from my corn flakes. “Welcome to the club, Phyll.”
“Oh, I'm not the one denying the similarities, Naomi. I know I'm a smug, self satisfied, bitch. I don't have illusions about it. What, incidentally, do you think I learned at my mother's knee?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know. How to eat, how to walk, how to bow to royalty. Or did they send you off to school for that?”
With a twist of her head she swept the veil of hair away from her eyes. “I almost wish they had.” She said wearily, “But you're quite right – my mother taught me all those things. She drilled them into me. Every time my spine rested against the back of a chair, I was reminded of what it was to be a lady. Every time I picked my infant nose, I was reprimanded. Every time my body made an involuntary squeak, I was taught the rudiments of self control.”
“OK, Phyll. I'll concede that growing up as a privileged, rich, and gorgeous member of the British aristocracy wasn't all sweetness and light.”
That did it. “Sweetness and light! Where the fuck do you think you're coming from?”
“Brooklyn. That's where I'm coming from.” I wondered if Phyll could even imagine what it was like growing up with a pair of parents who, having survived Hitler, were fearful, neurotic, and overprotective to the point of obsession. Growing up with a father who, from time to time, was lost in madness. Compared to my childhood and the constant womb like paranoia that enclosed it, Phyll's childhood must have been charmed.
But Phyll was serious – dead serious. Somehow I had actually punctured her defenses. I hadn't meant to. I hadn’t even thought it was possible. Like Martin Welche, I had never thought of Phyll as vulnerable – she seemed untouched by ordinary human weakness. But that morning she was different.
“I'm sorry, Phyll. I suppose I had this simplistic notion that the people on top are just automatically happy. I know better. Of course it isn't true. All that elegance couldn't be entirely natural. It must have cost something, but surely it was worth the effort.”
“I'm certain it was. It is pleasant to know how to bow to royalty. It comes in handy any number of times. It is pleasant to have everyone think you're a fucking princess, when all the while you feel like something the cat dragged in through the door. But then no one ever knows what you feel and no one cares for that matter.”
“That's not true, Phyll. I care.” And as I said the words, I realized that I did care. Somehow, even through the veil of my own envy, I saw something almost fragile in Phyll.
“I don't want your pity, Naomi.”
“Not even my friendship?” I asked sheepishly.
She chuckled, “OK I am rather sunk in melancholy this morning. It's your influence, Naomi – all this emotion. And I do have at least one friend.”
“You have at least two friends. What about Martin the Magnificent? He thinks you are some kind of saint. He's not only your friend – he's your slave.”
She hesitated for a moment. “There's a difference, Naomi. Friends are scarce – slaves, as you would say, are a dime a dozen.”
Her voice was filled with bitterness.
“Martin Welche loves you, Phyll.”
“Martin Welche is weak.”
And Phyll despised weakness – even in herself.
“He may be weak, Phyll, but he loves you.”
“He loves an illusion made up in equal parts of the New York Times social column and a Greenpeace poster. He's weak, he's stupid, he's soft, and he's a drug addict.”
“But you sleep with him.”
She smiled. “He's good in bed. At least he seemed to be in the beginning. It's that 'with my body I thee worship' business. I can be very effective until it becomes monotonous.”
“Just let him down gently, Phyll.”
She sighed “I'll let him down as gently as I can, Naomi. I didn't ask for his devotion, you know.”
“You probably never do, Phyll.”
She smiled sheepishly. “No, I never do. I suppose I don't know how to handle needy people . . . or at least not the ones who demonstrate their need. But, Naomi, I didn't come up North to deal with trivia. I have work to do at Kiniktok. We both have work to do at Kiniktok. And the axe murderer is still on the loose.”
I smiled, “At least, they seem content to vandalize the Thule sites. They are leaving the Dorset site alone.” Then I asked her why she wasn't back guarding the site, building fences, shooting intruders.
“It's Tuesday. I came to town a day early for my weekly shit and shower. I have also come to prepare for your precious meeting tomorrow.”
I put down my cup. “I don't think it's something you should prepare for, Phyll. Just go and talk. Keep it simple. “
“Frankly, Naomi, I don't give a good god damn. Our work at Kiniktok is too important to be destroyed by vandals. Kiniktok is too important. I'll give the council a chance, but I've already telephoned Yellowknife and made alternative arrangements.”
“What sort of arrangements?”
“We'll ship the material out to Yellowknife just as soon as it is photographed and cataloged. There won't be anything of significance left here to pillage.”
I shook my head. “Immediately? You mean ship the stuff out as soon as we dig it up?”
“Yes. Of course the careful cataloging and photographing, in situ, of every item before it is boxed for shipment is essential. We'll start that this afternoon.”
I took a deep breath and braced myself. “I'm sorry, Phyll. But I won't have time to start for another day or two.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I want to spend some time in town working on my paper.” It sounded hollow even in my own ears.
“Oh, god, haven't you been listening to anything I've said, Naomi? Surely the paper can wait? Saving the artifacts must take first priority. You don't really anticipate any revolutions in Inuit child rearing patterns in the next week or two. Naomi, you were hired on to do a job at Kiniktok. You have responsibilities.”
She was right of course, and I felt a sharp stab of purely irrational guilt.
I did have responsibilities to the dig.
The problem was that I had too many different and contradictory responsibilities in the North. I had responsibilities to the dig, to the CIA, and even to that paper I was supposed to be writing. There didn't seem to be enough time, even in a day of twenty four hour sunlight, to do everything that needed to be done – particularly since so much of this spy business seemed to consist of sitting around and doing nothing. I was feeling guilty about not working enough at the site; guilty about not having made more headway on ARTHUR; and even feeling guilty about not beginning my imaginary paper. The habits of a lifetime of academic achievement are not that easy to cast off.
Worse, I was lying to Phyllida Allyngham, friend and colleague.
The lying got to me. I am the sort of person who finds it difficult to lie – even about trivia. I hadn't taken that into account when I had agreed to become a spy. Spies lie. As it turns out, they spend most of their time lying, and no matter how well justified, I could no more be entirely at peace with myself about those lies than I could be about spying on poor Martin the Magnificent.
Unfortunately, all my choices had been made weeks earlier, when I had committed myself to that first lie.
With a great show of patience, I pointed out to Phyll for the hundredth time that I had only been hired to do part time work on the dig – only fifteen hours a week. I had in fact been putting in much more time than that. In part, at least, because I realized the enormous significance of the Dorset find. But I was also in Inungilak to write on Inuit behavior patterns – and that too was funded by a grant. I needed to work on the paper.
She hadn't given up, “That old saw horse. It's rather like another paper on the incorporeal nature of angels. Surely the subject of Inuit child rearing has been overworked by now.”
I shrugged. “It's an interesting enough sort of thing to study.”
“Too true. But like so many interesting topics so many people have studied it that I very much doubt you can have anything significant to add to the body of knowledge.”
“It's because almost everyone has studied the subject that it will make a good case study on the relationship between the methodology of anthropology and its subject matter. I'm just up here to get a feel for the subject matter myself.”
“You mean you have come up here to acquire your own biases.”
Nothing slow about Phyll. But I wasn't going to admit that. “It’s a fascinating subject, Phyll.”
“Why? There is nothing extraordinary about the Inuit child rearing pattern.”
“Except that it differs radically from the current fashion among North Americans and Europeans, and virtually all anthropologists happen to be North American or European. Good God, Phyll. How would you feel being raised like they are?”
“Damned lucky, Naomi. At least your Inuit children have had two or three good years. Little English goody two shoes, like me, don't even have that.”
“Come off it, Phyll. You haven't exactly muzzled your aggressions. You may at times sheathe them behind a ladylike exterior, but you let loose whenever you want to.”
“Thrice sublimated aggressions don't stay sublimated, Naomi. There is nothing extraordinary in that. You don't really believe that these lovely Inuit of yours are totally without aggression? You do recall our axe murderer, don't you?”
“He could have been motivated entirely by greed.”
“Unlikely. His actions, if we can assume it's a 'he,' were the purest sort of aggressive act.”
“OK, so there may be one or two nuts in the bunch. Where have everyone else's aggressions gone to? Where is all that aggression hiding?”
“One doesn't have to be Sigmund Freud to know that, Naomi. Look for those aggressions in alcohol addiction, in wife beating, in violence to animals, in violence to children.”
“Right, Phyll. And I'm going to spend the next few days finding them. I'll start the search with Enoki's sister, Martha Issaluq. Meanwhile, why don't you go down to the council house, and finalize arrangements for our talk at the meeting tomorrow before heading back to Kiniktok?”